Sunday 28 February 2016

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 218

A HUGE, HUGE thank you to Sarn for looking after you for two weeks running. I can't truly express just how much it helped me! What a STAR!! I'm back (ha, ha) in the saddle again now - and no doubt Sarn will be back to her illicit hooch shenanigans!

My snippets card today is a Christmas one as I want to enter Rudolph Day over at ScrappyMo's and also Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge (use a sentiment) as well as Craftyhazelnut's Christmas Challenge Extra where it's always 'anything goes':
I used:

- 4" x 6" white card blank, tent style

- a slightly smaller piece of SU's 'Real Red card stock, topped with a smaller piece again of white card stock

- snippets of red, brown, white, green and black card from the snippets folder - all were then backed with Stick-It adhesive sheet apart from the wing and the main body of the bird (which is all white before the layers are added. I backed the white body with medium sticky sheet as there was gonna be a few layers (ie, a bit of weight) added

- then die cut the sentiment using XCut gold adhesive sheet and popped it in place on the card front

- die cut the robin parts and his little frond of greenery from the little snippets of card mentioned above and set about assembling him but I left his wing off for the moment. The die set I used is one I've been itching to play with - it's a Marianne Collectables set called 'Eline's Bird COL1392'. 

- stuck the robin in place on the card front, sitting on the straight glitter strip alongside the word 'Happy' in the sentiment die cut, placing the greenery behind his beak at the same time

- lastly, added the robin's wing using a little piece cut from a thin sticky pad

I did so enjoy making this card, so much so that I made three at once whilst all the goodies were out - in little bursts over the past couple of days There are two robins in the set, facing in opposite directions and there are minuscule differences between the two plus a pretty star shaped die as well. I bet a card would look lovely with two of the robins face to face :) And, I'm going to try this die set in brown and blue to see if it resembles a blue tit at all.

Let's move onto our 'peek at the picks' - chosen by Sarn:

Sarn said: I love the soft colours and the crisp fresh feel of this card . . . plus I have photo-taking envy! How does she DO THAT? LOL!

Isn't it a beautiful card - gorgeous frames and totally agree about the photo skills too! Laurie triumphs again!

Sarn said: Love the composition and the elegant delicacy of this card. It's SOOO pretty.

Once again, Sarn and I are totally on the same song sheet here - I'd already spotted this lovely card made by Jean as well and was so pleased that Sarn picked it!

Sarn said:  I think this is a brilliant set of cards, beautifully coloured and doodled on . . . and perfect for either sex. The dog images are lovely and I like the simple and pleasing card composition.

I totally agree with Sarn - Helen made a set of three cards and each one is brilliant!

And we have one new Playmate this week:

Carole J popped into the Playground with this fabulous tag to show. Lots of really pretty details and even the back is nicely covered too. BTW, we have some duplicate names in the Playground so that's why it's Carole J :)

AND, we have a celebrity in our midst girls! A few of you will remember who first started off the Snippets Challenge, it was the lovely Jules of 'Always With A Heart'. I took the challenge over from Jules after she'd done it for a year, and here I still am .... four years later. Over that time I've had so much support from Jules, both personal and craft related - she's a true and very kind friend to so many of us. Jules still finds time to come and play in the Playground now and then - and her cards are always a real delight even though she's a very busy lady with her own Wedding Stationery business plus she's a regular and very talented contributor to Quick Cards Made Easy magazine.

So, it was no surprise to see that she'd been nominated for 'The Favourite Designer Category in the British Craft Awards'. These are voted for by you and me, aka Joe Public, and to my mind are all the more special. And, wait for it .................:
Squeal! Look who won!!!!!!
Jules, of course!! 'Mr Heart' is really supportive so deserves to have his photo and name up in lights here too :) Well done Jules - richly deserved indeed! How lovely to see such a delightful lady win recognition from her many fans. No prize for guessing who I voted for then!

Onto the prize draw now, the Memory Box 'Perky Poppy' die and Paper Smooches 'Sentiments Sampler' stamp set. Our winner is:
Congratulations Jean! I'm not 100% sure but I do think this is your first win in the Playground and I don't have your address. And also you're a Pick of the Week - perhaps you ought to buy a lottery ticket :) Can you please drop me an email with your snail mail address - my email addy is on the RH sidebar. Thanks - and I'll post your prize off as soon as possible this coming week.

This next week's prize is pretty easy to guess:

It's your own Marianne Collectables 'Eline's Birds' die set as well as a Creative Expressions 'Festive Collection - Happy Christmas' die. The same as the dies I used on my snippets card of course.

The Snippets Challenge will run for one week and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 5th March. The gates will open again at midnight UK time on the same day.

I'm in charge again as already said, I just hope I can do as good a job getting round you all as swiftly as Sarn did!

And, I did post here on Friday, saying that we'll stick with one entry per person per week - it certainly seems a popular choice with you girls (thank you again for all your input and supportive comments).

So, a maximum of ONE entry per week (any additional ones will just be deleted in the nicest possible way from Mr Linky - don't fret over it, this may take time to get used to) and please say in a comment if you wish to play and be a possible winner of the prize. If you only want to play for either the 'birds' die set or the 'sentiment' die then just say so in a comment - if your number comes up then I'll do a further draw for the remaining part of the prize. But, both items are up as one complete prize if you so wish of course. Please also link back to the Playground in your blog post to be eligible for the draw.

Mr Linky is below - please let me know if you have any problems linking, it's easy for me to sort out so don't struggle on alone :)

Enjoy your week - remember it's Rudolph Day over at ScrappyMo's (only until the end of the month though so do hurry!).

Di and, of course, Parsnip! Oh crumbs - the little white rat bag is hiding and tooting away on the whistle I confiscated from Sarn - help!!
x

Friday 26 February 2016

Snippets Playground update

 Red Plastic Sports Whistle with Safety Breaker Cord

A HUGE thank you to Sarn  for all her help this past week! The good news is that I confiscated that damned her whistle - the bad news is that I'm feeling OK to take up the reins again from Sunday so your little Pal Sarn can go back to her mischief making and I'll be on the prowl for illicit hooch and such :)

The other news is that you all voted overwhelmingly for the Playground to be just one entry per person per week. Thank you all so much for your lovely comments and support. Yes, it means much less commenting and also levels out the playing field so that you are all in with an equal chance. Plus (and I never thought of this one) it does take away any pressure to feel that you ought to link up three makes to show support!

And one little extra of course is that, as said by a few of you, you'll be thinking a bit harder about which of your weekly makes uses snippets best so that you can bring it to 'show and tell' in the tree house :)

Seems like a win-win situation so we'll stick with one entry per person per week from now on. Don't panic if you accidentally add more than one entry - just let me know and I'll delete the latest one(s) for you.

 See you on Sunday. Toot, toot - come back here with that whistle Parsnip!!

Di
x

Wednesday 24 February 2016

Butterfly lace

Recently I posted a card here featuring the beautiful Penny Black 'Soft Wings' butterfly stamp. I made two cards at the same time - this is the other one:
I used:

- 5.5" x 4" card blank - made from Crafter's Companion 300gsm water colour card

- a covering of lace design paper from the Papermania Capsule Collection 'Heather' paper pack

- Penny Black 'Soft Wings' butterfly stamp, stamped onto Crafter's Companion water colour card using Ranger 'Jet Black' Archival ink

- coloured the butterfly using Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils and Sansodor blending solution then tickled over parts of the butterfly with a clear Wink of Stella brush pen

- hand cut the butterfly and set it aside
 
- die cut a doily from 'Baby Blue' pearlescent card stock using a Marianne Creatable doily 'LR0129'

- die cut the sentiment from a snippet of the same blue card (backed with Stick-It adhesive sheet) using a sentiment die from the Penny Black 'Hooray' die set 

- stuck the doily, butterfly and sentiment in place and called it a wrap

Edit: Another pre-made card and post to the rescue :) 

Di
x

Tuesday 23 February 2016

Trainee chef?

Len's great-nephew apparently has himself a placement working in a restaurant kitchen, yay for Edward! After the difficulties he's faced all his life, this is such an achievement and everyone is really proud of him. Plus, it's a restaurant working towards its first Michelin Star, so it's very much a case of 'Yes chef' and 'No chef' :)

It was Edward's Birthday recently and, as with all teenagers, I was a bit stumped until, whilst trawling the internet, I came across a fairly appropriate free Clipart image. And this is the card I came up with:
I used:

- 5" x 5" square white card blank

- snippets of plain backing card, SU's 'Blackberry Bliss' - one cut to make a mat just slightly smaller than the card front

- the striped white, grey and black paper came from a LOTV paper pad called 'Mr & Mrs - it reminded me very much of the butchers style aprons I like to wear when cooking :)

- the image, as I said is by Clipart, re-sized and printed onto white card before being die cut using a Spellbinders 'Wonky Rectangles' die

- then mounted the image onto a slightly larger panel of SU 'Blackberry Bliss' card stock, cut to shape by drawing round the outside of the same die used to cut the image and then cutting it by hand

- the sentiment is by Craftwork Cards, already printed and ready just to pop out of the sheet. I did go round the edges with an emery board to smooth off any pips and rough bits, then ran a black Whispers marker round the edge to cover the white edge which would have shown from a sideways view

- mounted the sentiment onto a circle of 'Blackberry Bliss' card, punced using SU's 
1 3/8" round punch

- glued it all together and called it a wrap

By golly though, Clipart has come a looooong way since I first used to liven up conference presentations and training material, in a previous life back in the Dark Ages! Always worth checking Clipart when looking for images.

Edit: Luckily I made this card and wrote this post weeks ago - always handy to have a post or two in reserve!

Di
x

Sunday 21 February 2016

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 217

What a total Godsend it was having Sarn so kindly looking after you last week! The aftermath of the gout session left me with back issues from using the crutches, then walking stick and then limping for weeks. Now that the trotter is more or less fine, the back flared up big time - meaning that time spent at the laptop and desk had to be dramatically curtailed. I can't express how grateful I am to Sarn for her help - even though neither of us expected me to go into Hunchback of Notre Dame mode!

And, what a terrific job Sarn did as well - a huge gold star for sure! AND, bless her little cotton socks, she's volunteered to continue for this coming week to give me a fighting chance of recovering. Thank you so much Sarn, I owe you - BIG TIME! Please go HERE to see Sarn's really darling snippets card - Parsnip has fallen in love :)

This is my snippets card, which I made in little bursts during the week - literally 20 minutes tops at the desk at a time:
I used:

- 5" x 7" white card blank - short edge opening

- a piece of the same card stock, embossed using the Couture Creations 'Bon Jour' folder then trimmed to just slightly smaller than the card front and glued into place

- next I stamped the 'friend' sentiment using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and a stamp from the fabulous Paper Smooches set called 'Sentiment Sampler'. I LOVE this stamp set - great variety of sentiments in quite funky fonts

- then used a little handful of plain card snippets (green, blue and black), all backed with Stick-It adhesive sheet to die cut the poppy using  a Memory Box die called 'Perky Poppy' and fixed it in place on the embossed layer. I made the poppy blue for a challenge - and also as I quite like the change from red

- tickled the poppy petals with Clear Wink of of Stella

- added one little butterfly, die cut using SU's 'Beautiful Wings' embosslit and a little scrap of blue pearlescent card - topped with a small white pearl

I can't remember if I've said this before, these days I don't buy ready cut 5" x 7" card blanks - but I do love the size (which you can't cut from a 12" sheet of card of course). I now buy ready made 7" x 7" square ones and then chop them down to long edge opening, tent style or short edge opening as required. The offcuts are always handy, I can get three different styles of opening and for me it's the most economical way to work - 5" x 7" envelopes can always be bought online or in local craft shops.

Let's take a 'peek at the picks', as chosen by Sarn of course - and she's picked practically the same entries as I would have chosen! I have been peeking each morning on my tablet in bed whilst having the early morning cuppa - always the best tasting one of the day to me! Here we go:
Sarn said: I chose it because I just love the pretty mix of embroidery and stamping.

Isn't it pretty, made by Elly and I'd have picked this card too! Sarn and I generally sing from the same song sheet :)

 Jenny H brought this beauty of a card and Sarn said: This card makes such a lovely Mother's Day card with the lovely die cutting and addition of lace.

Another lovely pick Sarn!

Would you believe that for the next two picks Sarn chose two of our new Playmates - again, choices that I totally agree with too!

Sarn said: This is such a lovely project and I find all the colourful mixed media, embellishments and ribbons really appealing.

This was made by Meena and it really is so pretty!

And finally, this is Sarn's fourth pick of the week. And she said: Loved this fantastic accordion album and tag book. So much detail and very colourful.

Do hop over to Sharada's blog for a peek - the photos inside are just so joyful!

If I'm right, we had five new Playmates this week - if I missed anyone new do email me and I'll showcase you next week (my email addy is on the sidebar). Sarn had already picked out Meena and Sharada as part of her choice this week - so that leaves us with a further three new Playmates to welcome:

546 (1)
Such a pretty card, made by Renata. I love the combination of turquoise and green and such a great design too.


A lovely Birthday card was brought to us by Stefi - great design and such a fun image too. Mia and Livi would love this card as they both ride during the warmer months (right now it's skiing and ice skating, one of the benefits of living in Germany where the seasons are more predictable!).

Butterfly Dream
And finally we had this lovely card from Charlotte (Lady Joyful). I love the bokeh effect and the butterflies are a beautiful addition to such a soft and pretty background.

Out of interest, Charlotte emailed me to say she'd been trying unsuccessfully to comment on last week's post - using Wordpress. If anyone here can help do please hop over to Charlotte's blog - she was trying to use the Wordpress option for commenting but kept being rejected, sigh :(

Hope you all come back to play again really soon!

On the news front, both Sarn and I had independently picked up that Andrea (KandA) is now a proud grandma to the prettiest little baby girl:
Isn't she just adorable? Congratulations from all of us Andrea! And this is the card Andrea made to welcome the new baby, those buttons are from when her daughter (the new Mum) was a baby herself - aw:

Time for the prize draw here now. We had the Woodware 'Wedding Hearts' stamps set - kindly donated by Nina who is the owner of Creativity Cards and Crafts, which is Sarn's local craft shop. And also the Creative Expressions 'Gemini-Cygnus' dies donated by Sarn!

And our winner is:
Well done Val! According to my little book, apart from a small win in the bumper Christmas draw,  Val has only won once before ( in October 2014) - so it was about time too.

I do have your address Val and your prize will be on its way to you as soon as possible.

The Playground prize this coming week is:
Linked to today's snippets card - it's your own Memory Box 'Perky Poppy' die and a Paper Smooches 'Sentiments Sampler' stamp set. Sorry about the light bouncing back, you can see a clearer picture of the stamp set here.

The Snippets Challenge will run for one week and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 27th February. The gates will open again at midnight UK time on the same day.

I'm trying something new this week! I did some adding up and discovered that out of the 108 entries we had last week - 33 were additional entries within the allowed upper limit of three. So that's almost a third as many again entries to look at and comment on.

As Sarn is being so helpful with the commenting and also due to the recent real upsurge in entries, can I please ask that you only add ONE entry this week. It's wonderful to see so many of you playing along and I don't want to put you off the Playground, but this might just make you stop and ponder over which of your snippets makes you'd like to link in? So many of our cards do contain snippets in one form or another that I can see why entries have risen so dramatically - plus we have a lot more people playing along.

We'll see how that idea goes - it certainly levels the playing field and gives everyone an equal chance if they hope to win the weekly prize. If you don't like the idea, don't just run away - let me know, and perhaps offer suggestions as to how the load can be eased. I really don't want to go down the road of a DT if I can help it (a friend who is very experienced in running challenges with DTs likened that to 'trying to herd cats') but something has to give in terms of the time it's taking to keep the Playground going - on top of this weekly post of course. And I want to keep this as a weekly challenge for now.............you have no idea how many prizes are lined up , can't get the lid on the toy box right now!

So, a maximum of ONE entry this week and please say in a comment if you wish to play and be a possible winner of the prize. If you only want to play for either the die or the set of sentiment stamps then just say so in a comment - if your number comes up then I'll do a further draw for the remaining part of the prize. But, both items are up as one complete prize if you so wish of course. Please also link back to the Playground in your blog post to be eligible for the draw.

Mr Linky is below - please let me know if you have any problems linking, it's easy for me to sort out so don't struggle on alone :)

Enjoy your week - remember it's Rudolph Day over at ScrappyMo's starting on Thursday to the end of the month. It's a shorter month this time round so best to start planning now :)

Who knows, there's a very good chance my snippets card next Sunday will be a Christmas one for Mo's challenge!
 
Di and, of course, Parsnip!
x

Friday 19 February 2016

School practice run?

Our, much loved, youngest grand daughter will be starting school in September. So, she got to choose a school bag.

In Germany the kids do seem to go for backpacks and carry a lot of stuff to and fro. Here's Livi modelling her choice of bag:
What?!?! It's almost as big as she is - someone's gonna fall flat on her back if she overloads that :)

We did have a good giggle when her Mama sent us this photo.

So thankful for Sarn being Playground Prefect this week - bit of a blip here with the back, sigh. But my eyes and ears are in full working order :)

Di
x

Wednesday 17 February 2016

Birthday balloons

I needed to make a card for a little neighbour, who is four years old this week, this was the result:
I used:

- 5" x 7" white card blank

- piece of SU 'Real Red' card stock as a 'frame' to the patterned paper, glued to the card blank

- cloud patterned paper is LOTV from their 'Up, Up and Away' paper pad, trimmed to just a little smaller than the red layer and glued in place

- a selection of  plain snippets of card, die cut with a balloon die from the Tim Holtz 'Crazy Things' die set

- using more of the same little snippets of coloured card I die cut the letter using the First Edition' 'Alphabet - Sans Serif' set of dies and then the number 4 using a Memory Box 'Classic Numbers' die

- glued the letters and numbers onto the balloons

- added small loops of red metallic cord round the tied part of the balloon and then stuck lengths of the same cord to hand from behind each balloon. It's much easier to do this as a two part process rather than wrestle with the cord all in one piece around the tied part and then hanging down

- before adding the balloons to the card I stamped the sentiment onto a white card snippet, using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and a stamp from the Hero Arts 'Messages' set

- die cut the sentiment using a Spellbinders plain oval die and mounted it onto a 'Real Red' Spellbinders die cut scalloped oval

-worked out where I wanted the sentiment to go and added three strips of ultra sticky tape 

- added a thin sticky pad to the back of each balloon and stuck all five in place with their dangling cord lengths then pressed onto the sticky tape where the sentiment would go

- added the sentiment, again using thin sticky pads

- to be on the safe side I had cut the cord lengths long enough to be able to trim them down once in place - job done!

I thought this card would be really quick to make - fiddle faddling around with the cord and adding it to the balloons took longer than expected though, sigh.

Di
x

Tuesday 16 February 2016

Cuttlebug Mania Challenge - I {Heart} You}

Time for the new challenge over at Cuttlebug Mania, and the theme is 'I {Heart} You - have a heart on your creation'.

You do have to use a manual die cutting/embossing machine (it doesn't need to be a Cuttlebug but it must be manual, not electronic). And, you can't mix the two, it must be all manual please. Then make your entry, link into the challenge, link to the challenge in your own blog post and and make sure that you also say what products you used for any die cutting/embossing.

Details of our sponsor this fortnight are over on the challenge - with a nice prize to be won. 

It's  certainly a great theme and hopefully your 'love, hearts and mushy stuff' goodies are all still to hand. This is my DT card:
I used:

- 4" x 6" white card blank

- snippets of darker blue card to form a double 'frame' 

- a snippet of baby blue pearlescent card, embossed using the Xcut 'Hearts and Kisses' embossing folder, trimmed to size and then layered up with the two darker pieces of card mentioned above. LOVE this folder!

- after a lot of juggling around I measured and then cut a diagonal strip out of the layered card, placed it on the card front and lightly penciled along the diagonally cut lines as a guide to the stamping - then set the pieces to one side

- phew, perfect fit when I stamped the 'Love' sentiment using SU's 'Real Red ink. The sentiment is a pre-loved one made by SU, from a set of four called 'Wonderful Words', probably long discontinued

- rubbed out the light pencil lines and then added the embossed panels to the card front

- making the big heart was fun - not! The first attempt was a total failure and I had to think outside the box when I redid it. First of all I die cut a plain white heart from a snippet using the Memory Box 'Cupid Heart' die and put that to one side - so far so good

- after the failed first attempt I'd had a rethink about how to make the big heart made up of little hearts as I wanted it to sit on top of the card with a little border and not be inlaid

- covered a snippet of blue card with Stick-It adhesive sheet and then die cut the heart shaped cluster of hearts using the Memory Box die called 'Heart of Hearts' for the second time. It comes without a frame and that's where I had problems with the first attempt - it's almost impossible to line up the 'Cupid Heart' evenly in order to die cut a nice narrow border around the little die cuts. That's made me realise that the die is not actually meant to be used as a frame - unless you truly want a trip to the Funny Farm! Cluck, baa, moo!

- then came a light bulb moment! I took the solid die (which has a thin perspex inside the outer metal shape so you can see exactly where it's positioned), gently taped it in place over the little hearts and lightly pencilled round the outside before then hand cutting it to form a border - yay!

- peeled off the Stick-It backing and poked out what seemed like hundreds of little hearts then stuck it onto the white heart shape I'd die cut earlier

- from a little snippet of red card I die cut a handful of little hearts, again using the 'Heart of Hearts' die, and then added just a couple into the main heart shape before sticking it onto the card using thin sticky pads

By then I was exhausted and the place was littered with tiny little sticky backed hearts! A few lessons learned there! Luckily I'd already invested in the die a good while ago to use with another MB heart die (Serafina) so at least it's fine with that, plus it's good as a backing for the card I made today and also the butterflies heart shapes - just don't expect borders without needing a session on a couch under a bright light!

Why not join in with the challenge? Surely it can't be any harder than the angst I had with my card - the theme is fine, it was what I tried to do with it! We'd love to see you over at Cuttlebug Mania!

Di
x

Sunday 14 February 2016

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 216

Well, that was a fun week with the Pancake Day shenanigans! I think everything has calmed back down again now - thankfully!

So much so that our ringleader/rebel/reporter has done a total about-turn and is very kindly giving me a little break this coming week. So please welcome Sarn (aka Dick Orem) as your Prefect - she will be commenting on entries and doing the picks for me. As well as that, Sarn made our snippets cards (three of them!) this week and also very kindly has a lovely double prize in store for you. I'll still be here in the background in case anyone has problems linking, seeing who would like to be in for the prize(s) and will still look at your entries (I'm just a sticky beak!), even if I don't comment.

Let's take a look at the three snippets cards Sarn made:
Aren't they absolutely gorgeous? You can hop over to Sarn's to find out more about them - lovely stamps and such pretty colours too.

Time now for a 'peek at the picks' - as always such a difficult job deciding:

I very rarely let on that something I see in the Playground will be a weekly pick, things sometimes change over the week and I can only show so many of your wonderful makes. But, I broke my own rule and this went right to the top of my picks list - and I also told Janis too! Do go and see exactly how Janis made this lovely work of mixed media art - I totally adore it!

I adore this card, made by Helen! So clever to use the newsprint paper for the flowers (yet another idea stored for future use!) - and the stamped central flower stems with Helen's hand doodled shorter stems and border are just brilliant too!

Isn't this fresh and fabulous? Sonia used the inlay technique to make this really pretty card using Distress Inks and a white gel pen - I love it! Sonia entered three times this week and I could have included every single make - chose this one as I felt it's such a great idea to CASE.


We had lots of Valentine's Day cards in the Playground this week - and I loved every single one! I picked this card, made by Sandy, because the paper piecing is great - and also it really made me smile, such a great sentiment too!

I picked this card, made by Lynn, because I love the colours and composition, so pleasing on the eye IMHO. Isn't that wavy die a stunner too?!

As it's Valentine's Day I thought it appropriate to finish the picks with this amazing pop up box, made by Jenny L. Would you believe it's Jenny's very first pop up box card? Totally stunning indeed Jenny!

So that's the 'peek at the picks' - and, I hope Carole D won't mind, we have one very, very happy new Granny in the Playground. Baby Thomas was born on Monday 8th February - and this is the lovely card Carole made, albeit not a snippets entry:
A rocker on a rocker :)

And ............................... here's the little chap himself:
Oh my word, isn't he one of the loveliest babies ever?

We have one new Playmate this week, and it's Darlene who is a friend of Diane H. Together they run a great challenge called 'Double D Challenges' - go here to take a peek. It's already a very popular challenge with some lovely themes! This is Darlene's really lovely card - gosh I so love that die!

Time now to pick the winner of last week's prize of the Crafts-Too 'Butterfly Garden' die and Inkylicious  two-stamp set called 'Sunshine Wishes'. And our winner is:
Well done Jane! I have your address here and will post the die and stamps off to you this coming week.

Onto this coming week's prize, which as I already said is a double one - yay for Sarn!

First of all it's a Woodware 'Wedding Hearts' stamp set , kindly donated by Nina who is the owner of Creativity Cards and Crafts, which is Sarn's local craft shop. Thank you SO much Nina! Sarn used all of her own set of stamps for her snippets cards, with really beautiful and varied results.
And, we also have a beautiful set of three Creative Expressions 'Gemini - Cygnus' dies, kindly donated by Sarn!
Two really lovely parts to this coming week's prize!

The Snippets Challenge will run for one week and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 20th February. The gates will open again at midnight UK time on the same day.

Maximum of three entries and please say in a comment if you wish to play and be a possible winner of the prize. If you only want to play for either the stamps or the set of dies then just say so in a comment - if your number comes up then I'll do a further draw for the remaining part of the prize. But, both items are up as one complete prize if you so wish of course. Please also link back to the Playground in your blog post to be eligible for the draw.

Mr Linky is below - please let me know if you have any problems linking, it's easy for me to sort out so don't struggle on alone :)

Enjoy your week - whatever mischief you might have planned! And please look after Sarn :)

Di and, of course, Parsnip!
x

Friday 12 February 2016

Happy Birthday 'Less is More'


It's the 5th Birthday of one of my favourite challenges - Less is More. The theme is 'White on White' and 'accents in metallic or B/W are perfectly acceptable'. I think my black is somewhat more than just an accent (probably I'd go so far as to use the word overpowering!), sigh, but am still linking in to wish all the hardworking girls on the DT a Very Happy Birthday .... and many more to come!
I was trying to achieve a bit of an Art Deco look - 'nul points' as zee French would say when judging zee UK in zee Eurovision Song Contest :)

I used:

- 4" x 6" white card blank

- piece of white card from the same A4 sheet of card, trimmed slightly smaller than the card front and then die cut an aperture at an angle using the Memory Box 'Prim Poppy' die. I kept the die cuts themselves, needed the cut piece from the centre later on and also the poppies will be used at some point

- then backed the aperture with a snippet of white card which I'd covered using medium strength double sided adhesive sheet and set it to one side

- die cut the 'Prim Poppies' again, this time from a piece of white adhesive glitter sheet from the Xcut 'Metallics' set which I'd backed with a snippet of white card before die cutting - that was to make sure the level was right between the background and the poppies - didn't want them to be recessed and they only stand very slightly proud of the backing card

- then tucked the white sparkly poppy die cut into the aperture as an inlay (remember it was already backed with adhesive sheet faced upwards/to the front of the card) and followed that with the plain white die cut piece from the centre which I mentioned earlier

- next die cut the sentiment from black adhesive glitter sheet from the Xcut 'Metallics' set using the Joanna Sheen 'Retro Happy Birthday' die and added that to the card

- wow, what a lot of black against the white in one area - so I punched each corner using a Woodware 'Fancy Corner' punch and added little 1" squares of black card, covered with leftover snippets of the black adhesive glitter sheet behind each one

- used thin sticky pads to adhere the panel to the front of the card

- final touches, a few clear diamante gems around the poppies and one black gem above the letter 'i' in the sentiment

If it wasn't LIM's Birthday I wouldn't bother linking this into their challenge as frankly I don't think it's a success - but I do so want to help them to celebrate!

Lately I've been referring to medium strength adhesive sheet. Just to clarify - my definitions of adhesive sheet start with the strong stuff which is made by the likes of Woodware and comes with a red plastic backing, just like the ultra sticky red line tape. I tend to use that stuff quite sparingly as it isn't cheap - and it also is no good for die cutting IMHO.

Then, the medium stuff is covered with waxed paper backing, it die cuts quite well so long as the die isn't too finely detailed and is pretty robust. If I was using micro beads I'd go for the stronger stuff mentioned above but this will generally hold fine glitter and also gilding flakes without any problems.

And lastly, the lightweight adhesive sheet is 'Stick-It'. The layer of adhesive on Stick-It is very thin and it's really great for those intricate dies so long as you remember that it is deliberately still movable until you've really pressed it in place firmly. If I was layering several thicknesses of card or paper to do the 'camouflage' technique then I certainly wouldn't expect Stick-It to hold several layers onto my project. I would layer up using Stick-It as it's just so good with die cuts - but, the layer right on the card would be held in place with stronger adhesive sheet or even glue.

Hope this made some sense! I found all this out by trial and a good few errors so just wanted to share my thoughts :)

Di
x